The Postal Service is a critical partner for mail voting programs. The service’s website embraces the responsibility, noting that it treats all completed ballots as first-class mail and is committed to their “expeditious processing and delivery.”
But the Postal Service has also made changes that could affect election mail, perhaps most acutely in rural areas. As part of a 10-year strategic plan announced in 2021, the service has consolidated and changed policies at some of its regional processing centers, which could lead to delays in postmarking and delivery of mail. Postmarks are a critical component of mail voting laws that allow ballots to be accepted after Election Day only with proof that they were cast before polls closed.
In last year’s municipal elections in Snohomish County, Wash., the third most populous county in the state, significantly more ballots were postmarked too late, affecting thousands of voters, according to Stuart Holmes, the state’s election director. Similarly record-high percentages of ballots were rejected because of late postmarks during the most recent local elections in February.
Some of that comes from service changes at local post offices, which in some cases now collect ballots from mailboxes only once a day, and have issued disclaimers that ballots may not be postmarked the same day they are received. “If a voter attempts to return their ballot on Election Day, the likelihood of it being postmarked too late is almost certain,” Mr. Holmes said.
Logistical changes could also delay ballots for rural voters.
In Oregon, Postal Service changes eliminated all but one central sorting center, in Portland.
That meant that when a voter in Medford, a city in southwestern Oregon, put a ballot in the mail, even though the town clerk’s office was only a few miles away, the ballot had to travel about 280 miles north to Portland for a postmark before returning to the Medford elections office to be counted.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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